__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

My suggestions are not original, but here they come (btw I can't count):

1. Galaxy defence page
Galaxies are the first place for new players to start interacting with other players. The galaxy status should be similar to the alliance defence page: show report eta, allow galmembers to share scans on attackers and show prelaunched ingal defence fleets.

2. Donations
Total donations you can receive should not be worth more than a small percentage of the value of a topxx player.

3. Change xp
XP should:
A. not reward crashing
B. gradually build up over time (Nowadays xp is totally decisive for the rankings in the early days while it slowly becomes meaningless later in the round.)
C. not be a burden when playing the game

XP should not be part of the bravery factor. The bravery factor is currently based on both value and score (value+xp). It can be based on value alone to remove xp from the formula. XP as part of the bravery factor means that the more xp you have the harder it gets to gain new xp. Likewise xp should also be removed from the salvage formula: there should be no penalty for having xp.

Implement a compensation factor that reduces xp for value lost in the attack (0 xp if value for stolen roids is less than value of lost ships - value of killed enemy ships). XP increases if the enemy fights and loses more than you do.

Cap xp to a % of your value, so you cannot gain lots of xp if you keep crashing. If you manage to increase your value over time, you can also gain more and more xp in each attack.

Make xp have some use in the game, eg. by giving it a small damage bonus like: damage*(1+10%*xp score/value)

4. Initial game setup
Limit preround setup and let people do more during the round, e.g.: change government, quests (such as suggested here), let people choose a different set of ships to research for Light, Medium and Heavy ships instead of having ships determined for each race. Perhaps even remove races altogether.

5. Paid sms notifications
Someone has to pay to keep the chimney smoking and pay for people working on the game. This is a feature people would be willing to pay for if it was just a few cents extra per message (50 msgs x 500 players x € 0,04 = € 1.000 extra income/round).

The cost of these carriers is high.
They require a special factory (or factories)
They are limited because of their technical level of speciality to 3 at any one time. This limit might be adjustable if a player commits to a special mission. (more on that momentarily.)

These 3 vessels each reside in new additional fleet slots. Each carrier rather than the fleet slot is what other ships can be loaded into.

The above might start small and only increase care of work on the tech tree.

IF the carrier gets killed, the vessels and salvage includes the above vessels as well . I think this would be based on all ships exiting the carrier, and then firing, but being able to retreat to a now dead carrier (this combat question is tricky, and probably needs more fleshing out)

In addition, the carrier can be launched with special missions. These might include but not be limited to:-
Capturing all salvage from the combat tick.
Stealing roids.
Stealing ships.
Stealing 1 tick or part of a Ticks resources.
Stealing a piece of infrastructure (a distie, amp, factory or pot luck)
Stealing population (may well be a dumb idea, but hey we love dumb ideas)
Damaging security on a target (reducing alertness or something similar)
Stealing another Stealth Carrier factory or piece of tech.

To sum up, 1 new ship type for each race, and 3 new fleet slots. The ships and movements allow interesting missions and work outs, but are fairly limited in scope. The stealth angle means that calcing is reduced and replaced by some cheek, flair and guile. And hopefully some fun. Dev in the tech tree might allow a big heavier use later in game via the tech tree.

2. Scanners. Gal and Cluster + alliance levels
Make scanners an official game player type. Allow then to capture a low percentage of their alliances 'special resource - see below'. Allow scanners some ability to disrupt incoming attacks - in a similar way to below. Note however, Alliances would have to have a special tech tree, and each step would be expensive. And could only be paid for by alliance members. This would involve number of reactors, special disruption boosters increasing the range of the jumpgate interference. This infrastructure might be large and not easy to hide. Scanners might become targets in inter-alliance war.
Something like this might break the constant and one sided 'distie/amp war' and reduce the scanners absolute lead against normal players.

Jump gate interference.
Create a new resource. Create a limited tech tree.
Allow the resource to be used in the technology to create interference on inbound traffic. The resource would be non transferable, and only mined on the local planet. The resource is limited, and only enough can be mined to fire up the jump gate interference reactors once every X tick. Reactors would need to be built just like other infrastructure. The result would be that inbound navigation is affected and (some, or all) inbound traffic arrives either 1 tick earlier, or 1 tick later than scheduled (and its pot luck)

3. Bounties.
Make it a flat rule that joining an alliance costs X per turn. This is put in fund, and is automated (to rule out the human element)

Award a bounty for joining and landing alliance attacks (so you get a reward even if all your ships are lost, and perhaps the reward leans towards players who lose more % wise?).

Award a bounty defending.

Award a part of salvage to both defending and attacking alliances should they wish to select attack targets. That salvage goes to the fund. If they choose not to 'select' and keep unofficial, the whole alliance salvage goes to the defending alliance. This assumes the defending planet is an alliance member. If not, the defending planet gets ALL the salvage - giving lone wolf players a decent bump after alliance chewings.

'News or info leaks 10 ticks after the attack to the planet where the attack lands telling them which alliance hit them on Tick x according to the intelligence services'.

__________________
My Co-Ords? There is nothing interesting at my Co-ords!

1) Change Structure Killing to Structure Disabling. Use your population to repair your structures for minimal cost. Structures are just too important to have killed constantly.
2) Galaxy Defense page. Sensitive to wanted/trusted/notwanted etc.
3) A second base fleet, simply to split ships into run and hide AND fight and stay

oh the universal resource exchange would actually work. so that can always be done, if you want to, you could do some research into how 'marketmakers' work and give some races the ability (f.i. zik or etd) to be able to marketmake and go into negative resources (relative to their score/value) to trade..

2) Let people manage multiple planets through the tech tree (some form of colonisation tech) and give them the challenge of fleet distribution, the costs of setting up extra planets and racking up score - add scans to help people identify where fleets are to compensate

3) Make rounds longer to open up extra strategies.

__________________
"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life."

oh the universal resource exchange would actually work. so that can always be done, if you want to, you could do some research into how 'marketmakers' work and give some races the ability (f.i. zik or etd) to be able to marketmake and go into negative resources (relative to their score/value) to trade..

LoL @ banking system in PA

I agree with the bounty idea

__________________At some point the world shits on everybody. Pretending it ain't shit makes you an idiot, not an optimist."

2) Let people manage multiple planets through the tech tree (some form of colonisation tech) and give them the challenge of fleet distribution, the costs of setting up extra planets and racking up score

Good idea allthough I doubt this will prevent illegal multi'ing of accounts though. But it'd give more diversity and more stuff to do inbetween ticks.

Mmm, eventhough I very much like the idea of an open market like that, alliances can greatly manipulate this.

E.g. I attack you. All your alliance m8's who have ships at home can sell you all their ships for 1 metal. After the attack landed or cancelled, you give the ships back from 1 metal :-)

Ofcourse if you put ETA on when the goods are delivered, you can prevent this. But even then, top players will receive "free" ships all the time.

So there should be some sort of mechanism that prevents these kind of transactions, not?

Obviously these goods would still need to travel from the sellers planet to the buyers planet. And then there is also no guarantee that the planet under attack - which these ships are meant for - actually buys them, someone else might sneak in faster and makes huge profit that way.
I'm pretty certain such a market would easily regulate itself.

__________________The outraged poets threw sticks and rocks over the side of the bridge. They were all missing Mary and he felt a contented smug feeling wash over him. He would have given them a coy little wave if the roof hadn't collapsed just then. Mary then found himself in the middle of an understandably shocked family's kitchen table. So he gave them the coy little wave and realized it probably would have been more effective if he hadn't been lying on their turkey.

This thread is huage.... and so this post is probably completely useless...
However,

Most importantly I would say the game needs to connect to the real playerbase attitude ie. GO THROUGH THE ALLIANCE REP FUNCTION
where the players in the alliances speak with the alliance reps about things they want to change, the alliance reps speak to the PA team reps in #alliances and they then go on to the game creators/higher powers to confirm any changes that get through to that stage.
This current system of every man and his dog speaks direct to the PA team.. it makes the PA team's life busier I guess (which may be a good thing), but can't possibly be the most productive or directional way to deal with improvements to the game.

Any other changes are merely quick fixes that cannot possibly show the consensus of the community unless we voted as a full community on everything that is changed each round.

1. sell the game to spinner
2. get the game translated to other languages -> ogame, astroempires are already miles ahead.
3. make a concept for gfx implementations and offer something to those who actually put work into that.

This thread is huage.... and so this post is probably completely useless...
However,

Most importantly I would say the game needs to connect to the real playerbase attitude ie. GO THROUGH THE ALLIANCE REP FUNCTION
where the players in the alliances speak with the alliance reps about things they want to change, the alliance reps speak to the PA team reps in #alliances and they then go on to the game creators/higher powers to confirm any changes that get through to that stage.
This current system of every man and his dog speaks direct to the PA team.. it makes the PA team's life busier I guess (which may be a good thing), but can't possibly be the most productive or directional way to deal with improvements to the game.

I know a bit how #alliances work, and if anything I would advise STRONGLY against this. Listening to catwoman, puss, greg, gm and the likes cannot be good for anything

1. give rewards for the last quests series or just remove them.
2. introduce friendly fire (the more fleets sent the higher the risk) to make huge team ups a bit less appealing
3.introduce aggressive attacks (attack ships not firing at defense will fire at other attack fleets-except allies ofc) to help cope with the piggies.

Obviously these goods would still need to travel from the sellers planet to the buyers planet. And then there is also no guarantee that the planet under attack - which these ships are meant for - actually buys them, someone else might sneak in faster and makes huge profit that way.
I'm pretty certain such a market would easily regulate itself.

Yeah ofcourse, but if you're talking about an open market, it means that players can choose to either sell their goods in public, or escrow them to 1 specific person. I that case, 'abuse' is possible.

1: as reese pointed out show race on jump scan very nice and i imagine very easy improvement
2: Instant Complete option on research constructions production costs 200% normal to instantly complete can only be used once a day or so
3: One round of complete random gals 10-12 players to each no BPs and limited exile this would force everybody to work together ingals
4: Second planet allow every player to have a second planet: hard code the game to ban any interactions between the two, cant defend each other, cant attack together, cant defend same place together. But make it so they need to use a credit to upgrade each planet game makes more money and maybe we will have a bigger universe

__________________
Veni Vedi Vici
We came We saw We conquered
(then we got laided)

1. Agree with Gerbie's galaxy def page idea, this is vitally important for new players as their galaxys are usually their 1st source of defence. It def needs the ability to share scans on it and what eta it showed etc etc.

2. Make XP useful, either convert into into res or give it some other benefits.

3. Make the likelihood of proper battles occuring more, in other words like the thread about encouraging landing on def more.

1. Find out what you want with the game, and work towards that goal. Right now there's too many people with different opinions and goals having a say in changes to the game.

2. Scrap races and make a big tech tree, with technology that excludes eachother. Make ships moddable with technology you research, or atleast make different ships with different strategies. Make planets more personable. Right now it seems like everything plays the same every single round.

3. Remove the autologout. Srsly, im pretty sure anyone who wanted to could get through the catchpa anyway, and this shit is so annoying.

1. Perceived Reality
How can a planet with few k inhabitants have 10.000 battleships?
Why is scanning many times more expensive than ships?
Why are races fighting each other?
Why are some constructions restricted in numbers and others not?
Moving planets between gals?
...
If there is any logic behind the game's mechanics I frankly don't see it. Ofc you could always argue with "but this is scifi" yet most scifi is rooted in reality and thus "appears" realistic - that's why I call it perceived reality. If things are happening and you don't know why the result usually sucks (Episode I anyone?)
The game universe seems bland at best - there is no interesting background whatsoever. The game is reduced to pure game mechanics and thus feels more like Tetris than WoW, even though both are just spreadsheets with GUI.

2. Useless features
If there are things in the game that don't have any effect on game mechanics whatsoever or don't help in making the game more interesting (like statistics) - kick them out.
- Population Count and Growth %
- Most quests

3. Dumbing down the game made it less interesting
-Prelaunch: The idea was to allow semi-active players to participate in night-attacks. The result is that they get more night incs. This has moved the game even more into the european night hours.
-Removing the starting ticks: I have really no idea what the reasoning behind this one was. All it does is allowing inactive players to appear good for some 100 ticks.
-Auto-reporting attacks: Fight fire with gas? (prelaunch with bots?)
-Queueing: Credit where credit is due. I think this one was a good idea and makes sense in the "Perceived Reality" mentioned above

Since I'm mostly inactive at night I enjoy those features - but they allow rather inactive ppl like me ok ranks :P

1. Scrap the current commerce system.
Replace with a new one.
Planets generate all resources.
Build a tech tree that is commerce based.
Courier class transport
Ore transporter
Bulk carrier
Converted Cruisers
Converted BS
*Tech tree to reduce time travel and docking seqences, and loading and unloading time, and perhaps transport loads.
Change some parts of the game engine so they are modular. The current idea of a fixed galaxy where little interaction happens is very static.

The Courier carries little but gets loaded and unloaded in 1 tick.
The larger a transport ship, the longer to load and unload.
Allow all players and alliances the ability to trade, however, all transactions have to be done via the transports.

Players could transport the goods as they see fit. Go collect return, or agree a delivery flight.

Transports are very fuel intensive. They have an additional caveat that they have to stop in their journey at one friendly alliance base in each cluster, per tick. So for example.

Alliance convoy one starts in 1.1.1
The ships are large so need 2 ticks to load up.
It has to travel to 5.1.2
The alliance has members at 2.1.3 and at 3.2.3 and 4.3.2
Ships arrive either in one piece or with losses. Ships take 2 ticks to unload. Again, if in orbit an attack lands, the transports are included in the combat / calcs.

This might mean an alliance asks its players to guard the transport convoys at planets on certain ticks. This creates convoy routes and potential for actual strategy to become quite serious.

Final point. Transports can be caught in sectors while loading or unloading, and contribute to combat and to salvage (including their deposits/part of their deposits, but attack fleets could only pick up resources if they send in transports. And if the resources are large they might be trapped for example for a 2nd tick.

Reason*
This would introduce strategies where players can trade with any other player, but perhaps you can set a hard limit of 3 transfers per game per player. In addition, paying subs to alliances, and also alliance payments would have to be done via the transports systems, and would introduce a true strategic element of organising and handling your commerce fleets, escorting them, and ambusing other players or alliances.

2. Assuming you were to allow 1. Sharing technology.
Allow players and races to trade some parts. For example, overhaul the factory system so that a race builds a fighter system/factory. Allow the player to make on planet, or build for export. If he can sell it, he must transport it with a BS class carrier to the customer. The customer must pay him in resources. Both sides may sufffer combat/commerce losses, and make good on payments.

The factory cannot be activated without payment completion. Because this is limited to BS class converted transports, its a mid to late game feature.

You could expand this to ships as well, with players being allowed to build ships and sell them. Alternatively. you could include foreign factory limits (lets say for the sake of argument, that these 'alien' factories require extreme focus in use being so different and each player can only have 6 or something. This would mean people would be able to make interesting things, but in limited numbers.

3. Scanners and scanning.
Limit scanners in a way that they can only jump ahead of general play via very direct alliance help. This would mean that scanners have a modifiyer placed on amp and dist building. Call it an exhaustion rate of their workers and manufacturing ability. To suppliment this build rate. To supliment this, alliance members could be allowed to ship using the game transport ships - amps or disties that they manufacture to selected alliance scanners. The scanners or the alliance would have to pay to unlock the amp or distie for the agreed price.

Again, there is a 3 tick unloading and loading time for the transports (meaning they may be caught in attacks.)

Alliances and players who make good use of the system should benefit. And players and alliances who suffer interrruptions and commerce raiding may suffer.

Lastly, this may introduce actual warfare between actual alliances and reduce the simple shotgun mass raiding lunacy that the game today seems to breed.

__________________
My Co-Ords? There is nothing interesting at my Co-ords!

1) unite fleet and mission page to one, saves so much clicking.
2) add more interaction between galaxies and alliances. Common projects/buildings, organisational things, perhaps add quests which will effect whole galaxy or alliance. Even some galaxys own xp thing, from fleets sent ingal, ships killed and so on. This will add talk and discussion in between ticks and bring some additional tactics ingame. Put the community more close together.
3) Attackers salvage.
4) Add more units/weapons/ways to target/bother others. For example missiles, spells/poisons, ground troops and so on.
5) Salvage collecting ships.
6) GET RID OF THE MATH QUIZ ON LOGIN!

There's alot of interesting suggestions in this thread, which I'm sure if implemented would go along way to optimising the current game experience. However....

The number #1 problem affecting Planetarion is the lack of players and no amount of xp / fleet / quest tweaking is going to help with this. What I'd like to see is the support / PA team asking for suggestions from fresh off the boat new or returning players. Spinner made reference in an earlier post to the myriad of questions a new player would have when confronted with the current interface / setup.

Perhaps a tick box being added to the sign up page which players new to PA could select to ensure they are flagged up somewhere for follow up PM's / emails.

Obviously this is will only go a small way to help keeping the trickle of new players engaged, when what we really need is some large scale publicity.

There's alot of interesting suggestions in this thread, which I'm sure if implemented would go along way to optimising the current game experience. However....

The number #1 problem affecting Planetarion is the lack of players and no amount of xp / fleet / quest tweaking is going to help with this. What I'd like to see is the support / PA team asking for suggestions from fresh off the boat new or returning players. Spinner made reference in an earlier post to the myriad of questions a new player would have when confronted with the current interface / setup.

Perhaps a tick box being added to the sign up page which players new to PA could select to ensure they are flagged up somewhere for follow up PM's / emails.

Obviously this is will only go a small way to help keeping the trickle of new players engaged, when what we really need is some large scale publicity.

If that is a rounded belief, then there is a simple answer. Give free creds to players who will offer to play the game as mentors. These 'mentors' operate as an additional support for new players, and offer help and guidance, and get the players into alliances and get them doing the right things.

That aside, you are probably right. The game needs to be interesting, but that does not always equate to being bombarded at the beginning with options.

One question. Why do options even exist unless applicable? Perhaps the screens and menu's should only fill out at various points once a players reaches that point/goal/action. Anyway.. ho hum

__________________
My Co-Ords? There is nothing interesting at my Co-ords!

This ship would first fire init 6 at Destroyers doing Normal damage for 37 points. If some ships are not needed, or no targets are available (using the current sytem), the remainder (if any) will swap off to T2 and fire to Steal Frigates when combat init 20 begins.

The idea behind the different types of armour is that the 3 gun types (Normal, EMP, Steal) will fire verus 3 armour types (Arm, EMPAr, StealAr) which would possibly lead to more easily designed or more understandable stats.

2. Remove galaxies as they are currently implemented.

Currently the only real use for a galaxy is for "top" players to use them as a means to avoid incoming. They do this by molding politics to secure planet ranks by allying with other alliances based on their galaxy distribution. This in turn leads to the stagnant politically commanded rounds we have seen in the past.

I have absolutely no idea how to "fix" this, though I have given some suggestions in the past. Basically I feel like more of a focus should be given to alliances as the "core" aspect of the game, with less of a focus on galaxies (as they currently exist). Everyone should realise that Planetarion is basically a community with a spreadsheet, so the focus should be on building upon that somehow.

3. Implement a Planetary Information System (PIS).

Create a blanked "alliance" (for lack of better terms) where anyone can join in game. Once you leave, however, you will not be allowed to rejoin. Within this "tag", members will either be contributors or beneficiaries. Beneficiaries will be charged a tax every tick to be used for scans. Only beneficiaries will be allowed to request scans. The scan requests will show to the contributors within the tag. Scans completed will use tax funds (or the requester's funds), but will not generate a link for the scanner. The link will be mailed to the requestor and not be stored anywhere else (as to try to prevent exploiting). The only time the PIS fund would be used is for scans requested within it. Scanners will have to use alliance or personal funds to pay for all other scans.

The intention is that this would essentially act as a public scans channel on IRC with the people choosing to participate paying a tax in order to receive a service while still being available to any new players that do not use IRC.

PA has stayed a bit static for quite some time. I've suggested some changes above, but how about some others that build upon things in game.

1. Government, Population, Factories, Power, Resources
Some of the aspects in game seem to have only a modicum of effect in game. Its a bit like they were put in as an additional 'thing' but don't really serve a serious purpose.

Government.
This has a bit of an effect. But what if it become heavier? What if the population changed this, depending on how their planet was suffering in game. What if they could eject you and force you into exile? What if you were doing well and this resulted in better mining, ship production, facilities work or otherwise.

Population.
Its in the game but seems meaningless. Should the population play a larger part? What if population weight was more heavily involved, and affected what players did more. Larger fleets, more people needed. Right now, the game has a low percentage control of population. Unleash this and make it so a whole populace could be thrown into the game in a variety of ways. Make it more a part of the game than it is.

What if your fleets are planetside, and you can apply those crew on other work while in port.

Factories:
Same as above. Make the population mean something if it is going to be in the game. Perhaps you can build more factories, or get more from the factories.

Power and Fuel.
I've grown to detest scanners. I call them 'support planets' because that is what they are. Change the game so that scans require not just resource, but also power. And each planet can only product X amount of power per tick. Additional power would have to come from creative play (stealing it from other players, or having it supplied from alliance HQ - as two examples.)

The game has had 3 resources forever. In each round the game should be modular. And by that I mean that each round, the 'creators' should look to expand the game in one particular way. In the past this led to additional 'races'. The modular approach should mean that the 'creators' add additional blocks to the game on every single round. This initially might seem like a lot of work. And it is as the game currently stands. However, what is already in game should be stabilised and standardised. A ship and its figures should not have to change every single round. That is change simply for the sake of change. Instead, please bring more to the game. Additional ships each round. Additional resources. An additional type of weapon, additional scans, or a new type of vessel, or strategy, or a new race. One new thing, every single round. In addition to this building block, things that are not good, don't work, or are basically peripheral to the game, get rid of them.

2
Races.
The game moved from being single race, and simple ship arrays, to more complex fleets, and additional races. No galaxy in the universe would maintain this utterly clinical racial divide. So, within the above changes regarding government, allow any new planet within any galaxy to have a percentage of some kind of multiple races and the percentage would be tallied by their galaxy or cluster.

Why? Because if you have (and this is an example) 25% terran and 75% Cath population, this should open an ability to produce an amount of cath and terran goods, products, weapons or whatever. Thus, a simple example, one out of every 4 factories created would be capable of making a Cath type of ship. Earlier on I stated that populations might take up a bigger role in the game. Thus, taking this one step further, you could allow immigration shipping in gal, and this would allow rulers to trade population of various races. Naturally, these ships might be expensive, slow moving, or only able to carry limited numbers, or other things. So, an additional type of factory might be needed for immigration vessels.

This opens up another angle. If you had boarding parties, or shanghai tactics, you might steal people from other planets, ships or fleets. These would get allocated into population and under slave labour might create additional factories, ships and designs.

Potentially, this could be pot luck, with for example some terrans taken as slaves, what you may get depends on the numbers you hold. It may take 20 ticks for them to come out with a factory and that factory might be limited to a single terran vessel. It might open the door for unexpected results if the creators allow some pot luck to occur.

Anyway, you could simply keep the same clinically static races. But what are they in game for anyway? That is the question? Right now, they are here for a few reasons. 1. Tactics, and making each one behave differently. 2. Ship types and function. But from where I sit, they brought that to the game. But now what? They have all been around for a long time. Now its time to take their talents and start a slow mix so that long term, you end up with a game that is actually more like the original game, with everyone being equal - but a vastly wider choice.

3. Alliances and Rules.
Originally alliances were player created, and not part of the in game tools. AT these times, the players made alliances and all the tools and it was the hayday of the game. Slowly the creators took all that away, and produced an effective and good alliance system, but undermined that by placing number limits and endless rules. Cant do this, Can't do that. Can't use bots, Can't have support planets. Can't play with friends or housemates or workmates, and all the time numbers dropped and dropped and dropped.

So, throw all that away for a time, and be bold. Be prepared to rethink some of these long held ideas and game theories. Open alliances up in two areas. One get rid of the damn number limit. You know what brings prestige, size and honour - the biggest baddest alliances in the galaxy had it. And its never going to be matched because of limits. I'm not saying elimimate it forever. I'm saying try having a no alliance limit round. Try a round where the rules are suspended and the players can try anything they can come up with to win. Include some prizes for really arcane stuff that gets found, or for the alliance the comes up with the best bots. And at the end you may find interesting results, things that you actually want to go back to banning, but also, perhaps you'll stretch the envelope so that each round and the rules of each round differ. Allow a round where players can create support planets, or can play with their housemates from the same IPs.

Going back to alliances, you allowed alliances a structure, and you have ranks. So, extend it further. Allow a 5th fleet slot that players can place spare ships in and allow battle commanders to use these. The player could only add or remove vessels from that fleet while it is at base, and at all other times, the BC/BC's own and control it. Allow the player to keep any good things that come of it (resources, slavage, roids). The best alliances and BCs will win battles and have contests, and have use and resources of their players/alliance members. For the first time in games, allow alliances to directly control and wield power, and also add an element of attack and defense that until now never existed.

In addition, ban vacation mode. If a player needs to take a break, make it so that he parks his fleet in a BC slot and requests that his alliance try to defend him. Vacation mode is rubbish anyway. People end up in 200.x.x. and its a pointless affair.

Perhaps instead of vacation mode you could do invasion mode, and the population would be put to building shield generators and and steal fields. The heavy requirements of invasion mode would man that aside from the BC fleet, the planet would be in lockdown, and resources would be heavily used (so they only grow slowly when in this mode) and attack on the planet would be heavily blunted. But the planet does not move, it stays in play and in gal. No more vacation mode.

Again, if you must have alliances, then so be it, But build on the basic idea every round. Alliances hold resources. So make it that every officer in an alliance holds a portion of the treasury of an alliance. And if those planets get attacked, the budget or funding might be hit. Make the game so that alliances don't just have various resources, but make it that they are in play, in game, every tick. And make it that fat greedly, or wealthy alliances have a tough time in some ways in regard to this.

In galaxies, again, there are gal funds. Make it so the officers hold a portion each of the funds and if hit, they may be lost. This increases the angle where players might have to join defense to help.

Funds.
Change all the restriction on funds, and make them a bank. Allow all players to put away a % of their per tick resources into banks. Allow alliances or galaxies to actually keep the interest, and allow the players to draw on their total sums invested, perhaps with interest applied. The larger the contribution from each player, perhaps the larger the sum they might get back in return. Perhaps players would invest, and later on use the money on ships or roids.

Roids.
Roids exist in space and vaccum and things happen. Especially to large numbers of roids. They might collide, be damaged or be destroyed. Players who have a number of roids above a certain size should start to lose a low and rising percentage due to natural wastage, and these should be used creatively. For example, they might end up in the smallest players roids in gal, or they might end up as additional captures during an attack.

Mass drivers.
Mass drivers are orbital battleships. They take roids (and these might be different types for different purposes, for example, an E roid might make 10 anti FI shots. An C roid might make 5 anti middle sized ship shots, and a M roid might make a 3 shot anti CR and BS shot) and can convert them into planetary defenses. Obviously, you'd want to control the rate this is done, and balance it with cost, and resources.

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